Local

From release
Two art exhibits debut this week at USC Lancaster’s Native American Studies Center, and there will be opening receptions for both Wednesday in conjunction with Native American Studies Week.
Beginning at 11:15 a.m., a reception will be held for the exhibit “Kahes’vkus Tvm Vehidi: Return of the Pee Dee.” Curated by members of the Pee Dee Indian Tribe, this is the third exhibit created for the NASC by an S.C. tribe or tribal group.

GOLDSBORO, N.C. – Dylan Bolles-Prasse of Lancaster has spent a lifetime battling sickness while trying to maintain a normal life.
But Monday was not a normal day. Dylan, 12, had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, suiting up in flight gear and sitting in the cockpit of a F-15E Strike Eagle.
The Indian Land Middle School sixth grader became Pilot for a Day at an annual program hosted by Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.

Of all the issues in the Indian Land incorporation debate, none sits closer to the heart of the matter for most Panhandle residents than taxation.
With a little more than two weeks left until the March 27 referendum, many voters simply want to know the answer to two basic questions before they decide: How much will it cost and what will it buy me?
The answer is, there’s no way to know until after the decision is made.
If residents decide to incorporate, the new town of Indian Land’s first town council will decide the answers to both questions.

Staff Reports
Child-abuse charges against a Lancaster father have been dismissed and expunged, and court documents say state investigators found the allegations “unfounded.”
Randy Lorenzo McIlwain of 1446 Winthrop Ave. was charged on April 27, 2017, with three misdemeanor counts of cruelty/depravation to children. His children, who were 7, 12 and 15 at the time of the allegation, were taken into emergency protective custody.

More than once, LaVern Shropshire reminded her sons that poor choices might one day lead to unintended consequences.
And that day was Dec. 4, 2015, when her sons – Naquavis Aqueece Benson, 29, and Jarvis Mandrell Benson, 38, along with a friend, 30-year-old Jarvarius Deshawn McGee, were shot to death in a triple homicide at a home near Pineville.
The Bensons, police say, were there for McGee’s birthday.

A long-neglected piece of Lancaster’s past near the intersection of S.C. 9 and Old Dixie Road is getting its due.
A historical marker that shows the location of the “County Home/Poor House” cemetery will be dedicated at 3 p.m. Sunday.
And this is one marker that’s a long time coming, said Jessica Blackmon.

Low humidity, gusty winds and one discarded, still-lit cigarette combined to kindle the massive blaze that destroyed three homes Thursday in Sun City Carolina Lakes.
“I’ve seen cigarettes start a fire in grass, but never in 40-mph winds,” said Lancaster County Fire Rescue Director Darren Player.
Player noted that interviews and an initial investigation led county Fire Marshal Russell Rogers to come to that conclusion.
A Sun City resident, he said, told investigators that he was smoking on a porch deck.

KERSHAW – This town’s most anticipated construction project since Haile Gold Mine broke ground Friday, with workers digging footings and assembling pieces of the new playground at Stevens Park.
“So here we are, finally,” said retired physician Jim Timmons, who was manning a portable drill as a group put together one of the many playground component bases that are being cut and built from scratch.
Timmons is the husband of Beverly Timmons, general coordinator for Kershaw Community Parks Council.

The North Elementary cafeteria was full of smiling faces Monday as Miss Simpsonville Lauren Long sang, laughed and spread the message of healthy eating and living with a large group of third-grade girls.
She also spoke at Brooklyn Springs and Erwin elementaries this week.
Long, 19, has been competing in pageants since she was in middle school in her hometown of Walhalla. She will compete in the Miss South Carolina Pageant on June 30, and if she wins she will compete in the Miss America Pageant.

From Native American activism in the Dakota Access Pipeline movement to the exploration of symbolism in contemporary artwork, four female panelists will discuss their roles in modern Native movements during the “Activism of Native Women” symposium this Tuesday.
The symposium, 2-4 p.m. at USC Lancaster’s Bundy Auditorium, is part of the Native American Studies Center’s 13th-annual Native American Studies Week.